My Elite Appraisals maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Generally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you would like to review an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at My Elite Appraisals.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at My Elite Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would raise the fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in ethics as the acceptance of an assignment that is contingent on "the reporting of a pre-determined result (e.g., opinion of value)," "a direction in assignment results that favors the cause of the client," "the amount of a value opinion," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from My Elite Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.